


Nurture Doesn't Have To Mean Children

by ThetaSigma



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Cute, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-11
Updated: 2017-09-11
Packaged: 2018-12-26 10:02:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12056655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThetaSigma/pseuds/ThetaSigma
Summary: John is feeling a bit lost after leaving SVU. Luckily, Fin knows exactly what will cheer him up.





	Nurture Doesn't Have To Mean Children

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sidewinder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidewinder/gifts).



> I wrote this for sidewinder ages ago to cheer her up and posted it on Tumblr and never posted it here. Remedying the lack of cross-posting now.

Munch was at a loose end after retiring from SVU. Oh, he had the job at the DA’s office, and that kept him somewhat busy, but it wasn’t the same. There were no middle-of-the-night calls, no sudden change of plans, no weekends where he was called in unexpectedly.

Some might argue that sounds like paradise, but to Munch, it meant slowing down, getting older. He was never a 9-5 type of person, preferring to throw all his energy into his projects, whether they be a job or a relationship or his conspiracy theories. Going to work at 9 and working until 5, then calling it a day, regardless of whether or not it was a day, was weird to John.

He might’ve coped better if his husband was there with him – at least then they could do things together in the evenings and weekends that stretched endlessly before him – but Fin was still at SVU, chasing down rapists and child molesters, long nights of stakeouts and hurried phone calls home with a “Not going to make it for dinner, babe, I’m so sorry,” and weekend plans suddenly canceled when Liv called that there was a dead body.

There was something in Munch that wanted to grab his coat and follow, to get lost in the minutiae of police work again, to be back on the force, bickering with Fin as they solved cases, but he had to accept that his time was done. This job was for younger people now.

Munch sat down heavily in a chair and sighed.

***

Fin had definitely noticed his husband wasn’t exactly sparkling- in retirement. He knew that John needed something more to occupy his time, something he could throw himself into. There was too little occupying his mind these days – the DA’s job was hardly demanding, Fin and John’s relationship was excellent, nothing to worry about there, and John had pretty much milked his conspiracy theories dry by now. Fin supposed that John could start looking into new ones, but John had looked upon them and said disgustedly that they were taken over by right-wing nutjobs trying to prove that climate change was a government program designed to bring big business to its knees, or trying to prove that 9/11 never happened, and John couldn’t bring himself to get into those. In fact, John had been edging away lately from his conspiracies so that he wouldn’t get lumped in with these assholes.

What John needed was someone or something to nurture. Grandkids would be the best, obviously, but Ken had made no noises about having kids, and neither John nor Fin was going to push for them. John had never had kids and didn’t believe that having them was the end goal in anyone’s life, however much one may love kids. He frequently said that the greatest gift he could give a child was not being a parent. There was no way he was ever going to even ask Ken his plans about reproducing.

Fin was more torn about it. He didn’t feel his relationship with his son was in a place where he could ask such a question – maybe it would never be in such a place. And he wasn’t sure how he felt about having kids either. He didn’t, for a second, regret having Ken – he adored Ken, he would die for him – but he had sorta fallen into fatherhood ass-backwards, more because it was expected of him than because it was something he actually wanted to do. Be a man, become a husband, become a father. If he had the chance to do it all over, Fin wasn’t so sure he’d be having kids.

So if Ken decided he would give this whole fatherhood thing a pass; well, Fin could definitely understand that. He’d be sad not to have grandkids – he did like kids, both John and he did, in fact – but he definitely would understand.

But nurture doesn’t have to involve children, Fin knew. And with that, he knew exactly what to do.

***

Several weeks later, he finally caught a break. It was finally a light day at SVU – apparently all the rapists in the city had decided to take a vacation day. Around three, he stretched and looked at the clock. Nothing, no reports, no cases, no calls since 8 a.m. They’d spent the entire day catching up on the astounding backlog of paperwork they always seemed to have, but Fin was at the point where he was ready to set fire to lot and let the fire department sort out the rest.

Maybe, if he was very lucky, he could leave early today and get his plan into motion, the “Give John a hobby” plan. There were a couple of places he’d need to go, and he had kept putting them off because of work.

***

John was in the kitchen, trying a new recipe. He was talking animatedly to the empty room about the provenance of each of the ingredients – he preferred a captive audience, such as Fin – but Fin had called and said he’d be delayed again tonight.

John had picked up cooking as a hobby mainly to distract himself from the utter boredom of weekday nights. After he got home in the evenings, he found the night stretching endlessly, and there was only so much TV to watch or reading to do (he had marathoned many TV shows he had been putting off, some of them for years. He ended being a fan of the new Doctor Who, much like he was of the old, of Mad Men, Breaking Bad, House of Cards, but not West Wing, or Veep. The DVR was still full of episodes of other shows to try, but after 3 or 4 episodes in a night he was more than ready to call it quits).

John heard noise at the door and brightened. It looked like Fin was home earlier than expected. But the door didn’t open, instead there was scratching noises and sounds like someone was fumbling with stuff.

John frowned worriedly and padded silently into the living room where he still kept a gun. He loaded it quickly and walked carefully towards the door, making sure to hug the hallway and keep his gun handy in case the person at the door managed to get in.

He got to the door and put his eye to the peephole. It was Fin, after all, fumbling with a bunch of bags and a crate of some sort, and John put the safety on his gun and tucked it into the waistband of his pants. He opened the door for Fin and asked, “What’s all this?”

Fin looked a bit sheepish. “Here, help me with the bags, I’ll show you inside. I’ll take the crate.”

Muffled noises came from inside the crate, and John’s curiosity was definitely piqued, but he grabbed the bags and brought them to the living room. He quickly unloaded his gun and put it away while Fin set the crate down.

“Fin?” John asked, moving to peer in one of the bags.

“No, don’t,” Fin said. “Not yet.”

John obediently stopped, and Fin had him sit on the couch. Fin opened the door to the crate and a Yorkshire terrier bounded out, muzzle on. Fin quickly removed the muzzle as John went, “Oh my god, Fin!”

“Do you like her?”

“Fin, she’s adorable. What… why?”

Fin looked down and mumbled something, clearly embarrassed. “Uh… well… thought we could use a dog…”

“There’s more to this than that, Fin, and I know it.”

Fin sighed – well over a decade with John had meant they both knew each others’ tells – and said, “You’ve just seemed at such a loss since you left SVU, and you’ve always loved dogs. I know we never had enough time to give a dog all the love they need, but now that you have all this extra time, I thought it was high time you got your dog.”

“Oh, Fin,” John breathed, pulling him down for a kiss. “Does she have a name yet, or is that my job?”

“No, I left that up to you.”

“Oh, I think she’s gonna be my little Peanut. She looks like a peanut, doesn’t she?”

“I think she’s supposed to grow,” Fin said dryly.

John nuzzled the puppy. “Well she’s still my little Peanut, aren’t you?”

Fin groaned good-naturedly. “You’d be just the worst with an actual child, wouldn’t you?”

John pretended to consider that for a moment. “Well, I mean, maybe. But can you really compare kids and dogs?”

Fin laughed and sat down next to John, throwing an arm around him. “I love you, babe,” he said, pulling John in for a quick kiss.

“I love you too, my love,” John answered. “Thank you so much. For everything.” He was so grateful Fin had noticed, had thought of something, even despite still working the crazy SVU hours. He curled up into Fin, holding Peanut close on his lap.

A happy little family.


End file.
